Free Summer 2007 by Subterranean Press

confetti.
    “You are rich Americano, no?” she said in the most
beautiful feminine voice.
    “Yeah, that’s me,” I said, because I figured hitting
.500 already put me ahead of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.
    “I am Conchita,” she said. “You put me in movies,
maybe?”
    “Sure, I’ll be happy to,” I said, making a mental note
to buy a little eight-millimeter camera the next morning, and maybe purchase
some film in a month or two, after all the tourists went back home and the
prices began dropping.
    Well, we got to talking, and one thing led to another,
and before long Conchita had samba’d her way to a little hotel on a side
street, and then she samba’d up the stairs, and then she samba’d into the big
double bed, and sometime during the night while I was snoring peacefully she
samba’d back out and about an hour before sunrise she samba’d in back and brung
her six brothers with her. One of ‘em looked like Primo Carnera, only meaner,
and he was the runt of the litter. She introduced us and asked me to name the
date, and I told her I couldn’t rightly remember but I thunk we were in June,
or maybe April, or possibly October, and she laughed musically and said that
she didn’t mean today’s date, she meant the date for our nuptials.
    The whole family seemed mildly upset when I explained
that offering to buy a cheap camera didn’t constitute a bonafide proposal of
marriage back where I came from. Then she started crying, and her brothers
began ripping the room apart and looking like they was about to leave the room
alone and start in on me, so I kind of rushed out the doorway and down the
stairs. By the time I hit the main floor I realized I didn’t know how to get in
touch with Conchita in case she wanted to go out on another date at some point
in the future when everyone had calmed down, but them brothers were thundering
down the stairs so fast that I figured that it was better to have loved and
lost than to have loved and been dismembered, so I took off down the street and
tried to lose myself in the crowd, which was still there and still dancing,
even though the sun was thinking of coming up.
    “There he is!” yelled a voice, and I saw that one of
Conchita’s brothers–the one with steel teeth and hobnailed
boots–had spotted me. I raced down an alley, turned onto the next street,
damned near bumped into the brother who carried a hand axe for comfort, spun
around, and headed off in a new direction. Before long all six of ‘em was hot
on my tail, and the only thing that saved me was that the crowd was getting
thicker and thicker, and none of us could make much headway.
    Finally I spotted a big building where a bunch of gents
in sparkling white suits and ladies in sparkling pink skins were gathering, and
I made a bee-line for the door. I don’t think Conchita’s brothers saw me,
because they were no more than fifteen seconds behind me, and no one entered
the place for the next half minute. I looked around, and saw that I was in a
warehouse, and that this was where a bunch of men were getting into their
costumes and a bunch of ladies were getting out of them, so to speak. I
figgered the best way to become incognizant was to put on some of the duds the
men were wearing, but they seem to have brung their own, because big as the
place was I couldn’t find no spare costumes hanging on the walls.
    Finally I walked up to one of the men and offered him
five dollars for his sequined tuxedo.
    “Ten,” he said.
    “Okay, ten.”
    “And a date with Jean Harlow,” he added.
    “I don’t know Jean Harlow,” I admitted.
    “Then the deal’s off,” he said.
    “Hang on a minute,” I said. “I know a right friendly
local girl named Conchita.”
    “Conchita with all the brothers?” he said. “You and 500
others.” He crossed himself. “Those brothers made short work of at least 490 of
them.”
    “That’s why I need a disguise.”
    “You need a priest.”
    “I am a priest,” I said desperately. I